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Topic: 2.1 (Read 26982 times)

The main focus of the next update will be an overhaul of the games audio quality.

It will feature a large number of high quality, unique sound effects for all kinds of actions in the game, including different sound effects depending on what blocks you are manipulating and what tools you are using. Combat sounds, GUI sounds, the works.

Final update log:

Additions/Changes:* World saving stability greatly improved.* World file size reduced in some cases.

* Major Audio System overhaul.* 100+ new Sound effects.* 41 Full length Music Tracks - Over 3.5 hours of music.* Song Shuffle.* Audio notification when a player joins your world.

A new flat type called Natural will also be added. This will have grass on top, then the usual dirt, clay, sandstone etc layers down to rhyolite and bedrock. Just like a flat survival map would be, but without caves and ores. The ground height is not changeable with this type.

The reason to only release flat worlds initially is to get infinite worlds to the public but also give us more time to improve the terrain generation. Because once the terrain generation is released, you will likely need to create a new world if we go and change the terrain again, so we need to get the terrain as close to what we want it to be on its first release.

Releasing only flat worlds first will also give us an opportunity to iron out any kinks caused by infinite worlds before releasing them proper, kind of like an infinite worlds beta.

And finally, I don't want future updates to take up to a year again, so if we have a big feature, releasing it in stages like this is a way to mitigate that problem.

The conversion was necessary because the world data structures had to be redesigned a bit to allow for super large worlds. Existing Flat worlds must be converted to take advantage of super large worlds.

So in 2.1 you will be able to load your existing Flat worlds and have them take advantage of super large worlds, if you want them to, it is a choice.

When you open an NPC dialogue, adjacent blocks are powered, allowing a script to be executed via an adjacent script block. When the dialogue is closed, the power is stopped, allowing another script to be executed via the script block.

Scripts can both set NPC text and query if a player has viewed the text, allowing dynamic NPC dialogue to be created, rewards to be given, etc.

Blocks that are powered by Switches, Buttons and other blocks, except pressure plates, has changed.

For blocks other than switches and buttons, the blocks powered are:

West, North, East, South, Above, Below.

For switches and buttons, the blocks powered are the 4 blocks on the plane of the switch or button.

e.g.If the switch is on the ground, the center, west, north, east, south blocks, one block below the switch are powered.If the switch is on the ceiling, the center, west, north, east, south blocks, one block above the switch are powered.If the switch is on the west face, the center, north, above, south, below blocks, one block to the east of the switch are powered.If the switch is on the east face, the center, north, above, south, below blocks, one block to the west of the switch are powered.If the switch is on the north face, the center, west, above, east, below blocks, one block to the south of the switch are powered.If the switch is on the south face, the center, west, above, east, below blocks, one block to the north of the switch are powered.

Another way to explain this, whichever block the switch or button is attached to, that block and the 4 blocks adjacent on the plane of the attachment face, are powered.

* No more pauses/freezes/lock ups/frame rate glitches when sounds or songs are loaded and played. XACT does not hold up the main thread when a track is played (like the XNA audio types do), so all these hiccups are gone.

* XACT supports playing large audio files via streaming, so we can now play entire songs in the game and it use less RAM than the game currently uses when playing severly cut down versions of songs. It really is nice being able to listen to a song for a few minutes rather than a few seconds.

* XACT supports true 3D sound. So when that mob is walking around behind you, it actually sounds like it's behind you.

* RAM usage. Using XACT has allowed me to cut down the sound effect RAM footprint from 26Mb to 9Mb and the song RAM footprint from 5Mb to 0.5Mb. Thats a 21.5Mb win that the game can use for other things (also equals less out of memory errors).

* XACT significantly cuts down the complexity of the audio management code in the game.